An Analysis of Galactic Power, with historical and present context

For new(ish) players who weren't around during the initial launch of LSTB, you may wish to read some of the threads that occurred then before reading this.

Galactic Power (GP) was introduced in September 2017, right before the debut of LSTB. At that point, its only purpose was to allow us to "use" our DS rosters, which were next to useless in LSTB. Many people chose to raise unused characters to G6/7 + Lvl 53 to "pad out" rosters, allowing them to gain more TP by deploying more every day.

Back then, people with top heavy rosters were penalised heavily, myself included. I was getting 113/114 CMWs in LSTB, yet ranking about #15 in my guild due to my abysmally low GP of 1.7M. GP was intended to reward older players with some old-meta characters half-geared and sitting in their roster, while penalising those who only focused on a few characters.

Then came TW in December. TW was, in this aspect, the inverse of TB, as those with strong rosters and lower GP would win much more handily in TW (while losing out on better rewards due to guild GP bracket). Here, those with top-heavy rosters shone; they scored much better than everyone else of comparable GP by the sheer number of max teams they could throw. Padding out GP became a liability, as one had useless half-geared characters lying around in the depths of their roster. At that point in time (early 2018), the jury was out on padding rosters; one helped their guild in TB, while hindering their guild somewhat in TW.

This all got thrown out of the window with the introduction of Grand Arena, as the matchmaking system became one that only compared GP instead of GP and G12-to-GP ratio like it should. Those with padded rosters immediately found themselves competing with the likes of myself, who (as a 2.7M) have yet to face anyone with either Traya or Revan despite owning both (and their respective teams) and using them at G12 +3.

This obviously becomes problematic, as those clamouring for a GP calculation overhaul fail to realise that this kittens over all those who padded GP early on, making them less effective in TB and adding insult to injury. Meanwhile, the current GA matchmaking isn't very viable either; I have only lost a single match, and by about 10 banners against someone with a comparable roster of NS, BH, JTR and the like.

My proposed solution is as follows:

1. Use something akin to swgoh.gg's Collection Score (CS), and name it "Roster Completeness". Make this score percentage from 0% to 100% (100% being people with a completely max roster). RC will then determine a player's "Overall Strength", by multiplying it with GP.
2. Continue to use GP in TB deployments.
3. Use a guild's mean Overall Strength as the first criteria for TW matchmaking, then GP as a secondary criteria. Follow the reverse for GA; try to match those with comparable Overall Strength first. This is because TW GP brackets still exist.
4. Remove the nonsense "Community TW initiative".


This will solve most of the gripes people have with GA and TW.

Replies

  • +1

    I have dozens of toons half geared. I don't have Raven and a few others but due to my 2.8 mil GP I get my azz kicked badly. So bad that I no longer even try in Grand Arena. It's not worth the time as I get paired with hardcore players every single time. It truly is easier and less stress to just set one defense squad each time.

    If I play, I just get stressed and close the app. I'm not complaining about them, they earned those characters so they deserve to win but since that's all I get paired with, I can't justify my time to invest in that feature.
  • This is an excellent summary of the development of GP and its role in the game, but for a few details...

    1) you speak about players being “penalised heavily” for having top heavy rosters in the early days of TB.

    It is a poorly run guild that care two hoots about how many TP their members get. In our guild it’s simple - do platoons, do the special, do the combats and, if needed, deploy. It is only on phase 6 of LSTB we need all 50 to deploy and on phase 5 of DSTB.

    Officers in our guild, who have 4 of the top 10 GP totals, regularly finish in the 40s for TP over the whole TB. Finishing lower than someone else in the TP charts is not, and never has been, a penalty of any kind.

    2) on a similar note, you kind of gloss over the role GP plays in terms of the prize bracket for TW. Our guild had a frustrating spell of people leaving or flaking out on us as we approached the 120M “2 zeta minimum” threshold, whilst again overplaying the importance of “shining” in TW. I couldn’t care less who finishes top in attack banners. Just whether or not we win.

    Otherwise you’re bang on. I personally have more fluff than most (only 12 toons not 7*, only 2 below g7) but I’m not bitter.

    Who knows, another game mode could be around the corner where fluff is key!
  • I am deliberately, broad rather than tall, because that is what the guild needed at the time and my focus in SWGoH is primarily to help my guild, they are the reason I enjoy the game, we have a sweet bunch of people and while we aren't quite ready for Heroic Sith, we're not far off, we over perform in TW because we have above the curve tactics and have above average participation for our GP.

    I have most of my toons at 85 and all of them at 50 including Rose Tico.

    That's not to say I don't have A squads because both Raids and TB/TW demands it, but my focus is on getting a high GP to push us to the next * level in TW. I could not care less about GA, it's not fun in the slightest and frankly is taking away from the parts of the game i do like, honestly I would rather it crawl back under teh rock from which is spawned, and going by the total lack of participation in the last one, which i won with little to no effort so does a significant portion of the player base.

    My roster is focused TB > TW > Raid > general play > Fluff > Rose Tico > GA.
  • Rose tico gets her own category...
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